'SHALL I CATCH A SHOOTING STAR?' -- A Healing Story

[ * There are 19 pieces of writing on the mystical
path in this blog: essays, articles and poems.
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‘SHALL I CATCH

A SHOOTING STAR?’

"Symphony of Fire" at Vancouver, Canada

Text and Image © Copyright 2019 by Neall Calvert

MY SOLITARY DINNER at a Fraser Valley restaurant is over. As I direct my vehicle out of the parking lot, a strange sensation manifests in the middle of my head. Deep in the recesses of my mind, something feels wrong. I have no reference point for what I’m experiencing.

This could be the muffled booming of an approaching thunderstorm—except the rumblings are occurring in my brain. My thoughts no longer seem under my rational control; the feeling of disorientation accelerates and suddenly I think I could be losing my mind. Experience with spiritual teachings has taught me that some greater power is always available to assist human beings in trouble, and so I stumble around in my mind looking for the most effective way to invoke my Higher Power.

Rather than asking for help, in other words ‘pleading with God,’ as the old paradigm declares, I realize I have to affirm what I want, as Science of Mind teaches. I’ve never had to solve a problem this big and this pressing before, but I try to find words that will affirm what I want to happen. Tentatively I begin: 

“I call forth the restoration of my health and my sanity—and I declare it now.” I repeat the phrase again and again, checking if it still resonates with the situation at hand, each time my voice becoming louder, until, driving through the farm-country night, I’m shouting repeatedly, “I CALL FORTH THE RESTORATION OF MY HEALTH AND MY SANITY—AND I DECLARE IT NOW!” Given the circumstances, this seems the most helpful thing I might do. 

I begin to realize I’m angry about the continual lack of money I suffer from and the isolation I, a city dweller spending a year in the country, am experiencing. 

“HOW LONG THIS POVERTY AND UNRELATEDNESS?” I yell. “HOW LONG THIS SUFFERING? . . . AND WHY DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF?” 

With those last words, I’m suddenly clear who it is that I want to bellow at. It’s God. I feel abandoned by the Universe. As I warm to the confrontation, I let myself get real worked up. 

“WHY DON’T YOU DO SOMETHING?” I shriek. “I’M TIRED OF DOING THIS ALL ALONE!”

Never have I felt so isolated, so apart from Creation. Tears pour down my face; my nose runs profusely. Movement seems my only security: I keep following my car’s headlights along Fraser Valley back roads. Angrily I roar, “WHEN WILL THINGS CHANGE? . . . HOW LONG MUST I SUFFER? . . . WHEN WILL YOU DO YOUR PART!? . . . WHERE IS YOUR PROMISE, LORD?” 

Through the cascading tears and mucus, I feel that something I consider to be “God’s promise” to me has not been kept. It’s as if—until this moment unknown to me—in my core I believe that a contract exists between human beings and the Creator, to the effect that Its power is available to help us live fuller, healthier, more abundant lives. But, by some arbitrary decree, my contract seems to have been cancelled.

I feel very silly yelling like this, but there is no other person to hear me. There is also no counsellor available at this moment, or psychiatrist, and besides, a psychiatrist would conclude that my problems were either biological or psychological in origin, and likely indicative of a pharmaceutical deficiency. So I shout again, “WHERE IS YOUR PROMISE, LORD? WHAT IS YOUR PART IN ALL THIS, AND WHEN WILL YOU PLAY IT?”

A streak of light flashes across my windshield. Was it the flash of headlights from a turning car? There are no other cars on this country road. Then I remember this is August, the month of the Perseid meteor shower. I have just seen a shooting star.

My mind adjusts to a larger perspective than the one inside my head and the dark interior of my four-door Chevy Nova. I continue driving, thinking about the trail of light I have just seen. Is it a sign? If so, what does it mean? As I get out of my car at the house where I’m staying, the tears have stopped. I notice I’m standing a little straighter. The crisis is over.

The next day, two things happen. A voice whispers in my head, “You’re in the New Age now,” and a freelance editing contract worth thousands of dollars is confirmed. In the evening, feeling cleansed and lighter, I stand outside in peaceful darkness to watch for more streaks of light. . . .

The Perseid meteor shower is created each year as the Earth on its journey around the sun travels through the tail of a comet named Swift-Tuttle. Tiny particles of dirt in the comet’s tail collide many kilometres above with the Earth’s atmosphere and ignite and burn, creating what we call meteors. This particular night, high above me—although far below the fixed stars—I see one more of the beautiful dashes of light zooming across the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

The week previous, together with hundreds of thousands of oohing and aahing spectators, I had witnessed the annual Vancouver fireworks spectacular called “Symphony of Fire.” Yet one shooting star of only a second’s duration seems more real and profound than a half hour of multi-hued, man-made pyrotechnics.

I turn on the late television news: Local people camping out in a rural park to watch the meteor shower are being interviewed. Several adults are asked for their responses, then a little girl approaches the microphone and the reporter repeats her question. 

“They’re God’s fireworks!” exclaims the child. . . . That’s what the flash of light means. In my hour of deepest darkness, I had been given a light; I had been shown what a child already knows: The Universe has fireworks too. . . . 

Now that I no longer feel separate from an infinite creative force, sanity has returned. I’m back with people, earning a living, once more in the flow of life. I’m clear that no material-minded philosophy or science or psychiatrist with drugs could solve this kind of crisis. I sense I am more solidly part of something far larger than my human problems—yet certainly not unaware or unmoved by them. 

The healing I needed was to expand my faith, the kind expressed by that word faith when it’s an acronym—‘F.A.I.T.H.’—for Following An Ideal That Heals.

*     *     *

“Shall I catch a shooting star?

Shall I bring it where you are?

If you want me to I will . . .”

—Edith Piaf: “If You Love Me”

"SPRING SYMPHONIES" - poem

[ * There are 20 pieces of writing on the mystical path

 in this blog: essays, articles and poems. 

The "blog archive" or Table of Contents is located
below the tall, narrow image at left. 

Click on a white triangle to open it. * ]
 

"Raindrops on Roses, er, Rhodos"

Image © Copyright 2018 by Neall Calvert

Spring Symphonies
© 2018 by Kobutori Baasan

and Neall Calvert

Spring rain 
quietly sprinkles upon me,
opening my buds of new life.

Warm wet air
plants whole musical notes
everywhere around me
that slide gently down
and drop onto the earth,
and soon another drop
fills each spot, in a symphony
called “Spring Silence.”

When the rain stops,
thousands of whole notes
shine in sunlight,
presenting a harmony called 
“Light and Water, Music and Life”
that surrounds me, awakening me
to fresh love.

'WHEN I FIND MYSELF in TIMES of TROUBLE'

‘WHEN  I  FIND  MYSELF

in  TIMES  of  TROUBLE’ 

 Text & Images

(c) Copyright 2020 by Neall Calvert

 

Osoyoos Lake from Anarchist Mountain

DURING THE HOTTEST PART of the summer, in the dry Southern Interior of British Columbia, driving west from Osoyoos, I found myself staring at a rapidly climbing temperature gauge. I stopped the van along this remote section of Highway 3 to discover I had lost all the coolant from my engine. Not exactly a golden moment.

After refilling with water from my supplies, I limped in to Stemwinder Provincial Park. When I found a campsite and lifted the short hood on the ‘96 Ford Aerostar (the motor is mostly underneath—it takes two hours to replace the six spark plugs on this truck), steam rose out of the engine compartment and a neighbouring camper looked over and asked if I needed help. I said I didn’t know yet.

It was late in the day and, frustrated, I chose to cool my mind and wait till morning to solve this seemingly major problem. And I turned over the whole situation to a Higher Power, as I have learned to do as soon as any difficulty arises. I wondered, though, despite having developed a beginning ‘kinship with Infinite Intelligence’, how on earth this power could fix a damaged cooling system in the wilds of the southern B.C. Interior. After all, God isn’t a mechanic, is she?

In the morning, after body-and-mind-awakening rituals and a cup of tea, I thought that a first step would be to squeeze whatever coolant hoses I could reach, probing for soft spots which might indicate a hole. I was awestruck when the very first hose I pushed suddenly gave way, showing me the broken fitting on the heat control valve, through which all coolant has to pass. Diagnosis completed—in five seconds!

In a state of relief bordering on bliss, I approached my campground neighbour and asked if he’d be willing to drive me the twenty kilometres to Princeton (population 2,828) where a new valve might be available; at worst, the shop could order one in and I’d have to wait a few days for it. He agreed. Jim had his own problem: Just that morning, he had discovered a leaking front tire on the near-new, deluxe Ford pickup he and his wife towed their trailer with -- it was down nearly a half.

A retired policeman, Jim turned out to be a choir singer and music aficionado (as was his wife); he was also a man at peace with himself, so was good company on the trip. The auto parts store in Princeton came up with a heat control valve for a seventeen-year-old van for about thirty-seven dollars.

I directed Jim to Kal Tire so he would believe my statement that they always fix flat tires for free. Their mechanic discovered the eight lug nuts on the heavy-duty truck’s right front wheel to be on so tight that, had Jim been required to change a tire at the side of the road, he would never have gotten it off; the nuts barely came off with the powerful air wrench.

After breakfast treats at the A & W we journeyed back with gorgeous classical music again effortlessly emanating via satellite radio from a state-of-the-art sound system. When we arrived at Stemwinder and I thanked Jim for the ride, his response was: “We are here to help each other.” A half hour to install the valve and I was on the road again. |~|

Mural Celebrating 50 Years of Portuguese Settlement in the Osoyoos Region

BOOK REVIEW: "WALKING THROUGH ILLUSION: Jesus Speaks . . ."

WALKING THROUGH ILLUSION:
Jesus Speaks of the People
Who Shared His Journey:
An Emotional Biography


by Betsy Otter Thompson


*     *     *


To read Neall Calvert's review 
of this powerful book
(the only book he has read twelve times), 

go to:  

www.neallcalvert3.blogspot.com

VOICE IN THE LIGHT -- Memoir

VOICE IN THE LIGHT

O Roseo Magnifico   (c) 2020 by N.C.

[ * There are 20 pieces of writing on the mystical path

 in this blog: essays, articles and poems. 

The "blog archive" or Table of Contents is located
below the tall, narrow image at left. 

Click on a white triangle to open it. * ]

Text and Images
© Copyright 2020 by Neall Calvert  

"WHAT IS HEAVEN—" I asked "—all angels singing and harps of gold?"

It was the early 1990s and I was sitting at a table of the platform restaurant at the Hauptbahnhof, the huge main railway station in Bonn, Germany, wanting to relax with coffee and strudel. Electric-powered trains rolled quietly and efficiently and hypnotically in and out on the dozen tracks spreading out into the distance in front of me. I seemed to go into a kind of trance and then, between the third and fourth set of tracks, a glowing ball of white light almost a metre in diameter had appeared, and something in it had begun to talk to me. The communication came not in words, rather through thoughts . . .

After four weeks of European travel with my German-Canadian girlfriend I felt tired. On the plane coming over to meet up with her, I had had a panic attack and in its denouement my first encounter with a non-physical, helpful spiritual force, and then a level of inner peace I had never thought possible, especially five miles above the Earth. 

In Amsterdam that night, solo after midnight in the wrong part of town, I had been accosted by a pair of dark-skinned would-be thieves. Despite one of them already holding me and the other having his hand in my pocket, they fled after I made direct eye contact. I can only guess that the fearlessness I still experienced upon leaving the airplane was radiating from me and somehow affected their nefarious intentions.

Suzanne and I had been to Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland (Carl Jung’s home and the Jung Institute), Italy, Greece and Austria (Sigmund Freud Museum). After bathing nude in the warm Adriatic off Corfu, while travelling by scooter late in the afternoon we‘d had to hit the ditch when an errant motorist came down a steep, winding hill in our lane. Then it was a rush via bent moped thirty kilometres to the nearest hospital for repairs. My left forearm had been bared to the bone and gravel was embedded deep in my split-open left knee; my friend’s ankle had been burned from the vehicle’s exhaust pipe.

In the Austrian Alps we had meditated for a week with a yoga master. “A small accident and the karma is gone,” was his wisdom for the two bandaged and limping disciples. It corroborated my own intuition—of inexpressible anger towards my mother (a devout Mennonite to whom holidays seemed unnecessary) hidden deep in that arm.

Leaving the meditation retreat, I had spent half an hour in an ornate room in a Viennese castle where Mozart had once played. Now I had three more weeks to spend in Europe and I would be living in too-close quarters, I thought, with my girlfriend and her parents in a high-rise on the edge of Bonn.

At the moment, though, I seemed to be connected with a force that had a lot of answers, so I had asked my question. It sat at the top of a list of questions I mysteriously seemed to have prepared “just in case such an encounter ever occurred.” My inquiry reflected the often-sombre fundamentalist Christian beliefs with which I had grown up. I had tried to find happiness in these teachings, but since it was a philosophy where joy, enthusiasm and ecstasy are suspect and must wait till one leaves 'this earthly vale of tears' and meets Jesus in the afterlife, there seemed little chance of me reaching my goal.

The speech traits of the Voice in the Light closely resembled those of my father, and at first I had assumed the voice to be his. But I quickly remembered that my father was still in British Columbia and simultaneously realized that this was a force with far greater knowledge. This being had been party to every word, every feeling and every event, large and small, of my life growing up. It knew my physical, emotional and spiritual history in its totality. And in these moments I got a larger perspective—I could see it all too.

I relived the great beautiful mystery of, as a child, resting calmly before sleep arrived and hearing Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” (“A Little Night Music”) broadcasting into the darkened bedroom along with beams of light from the adjoining kitchen. As the theme song of the CBC’s nine-o’clock classical music program, the piece aired every weeknight, and I was especially pleased when the announcer, before beginning his show, let it play past the opening Allegro movement into the flowing Andante section titled “Romance.” To me this was the highest expression of music in existence. My parents listened only to classical music.

I reviewed my tastes in music changing abruptly at the age of ten with the new and exciting realm of rock ‘n’ roll—Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender—and a year later another kind of mystery with the greats of rock ‘n’ roll playing at the Cloverdale Community Centre, two kilometres down the hill from our house. In its cavernous hall I had peeled dozens of the hefty local potatoes so Surrey Brass Band mothers could raise funds for our outings by cooking and selling turkey dinners at the Cloverdale Fall Fair.

Few Surrey (British Columbia, Canada) citizens remember that Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox, Conway Twitty, Ritchie Valens, Johnny Cash, The Cascades and Bob Luman—all the top acts of the mid-1950s—played this room because it had the largest dance floor in the Fraser Valley. We neighbourhood kids pooled our money to buy one ticket; one of the older guys used it to enter, then he opened the fire-escape door to let the rest of us in.

There was darkness outside, but inside, hundreds of teenagers (all much older than my eleven years) moving to the beat in raucous Saturday-night sock hops. It was a different, and much larger, world than the one I wanted to escape from on The Hilltop, where for reasons unknown the family had stopped singing together a few years before, and when I tuned in to popular music on the radio or played records my reclusive, book-loving father would bristle: “Are you listening to that crap again?”

Through this movie now playing in my mind I experienced summer nights when our group of neighbourhood kids prepared to sleep in our back bush, in the cabin my father had built for us. After dark we crept out of the woods using flashlights, tiptoed silently through our own yard to the street and walked three kilometres to Hillcrest Drive-In Theatre on the (former) Trans-Canada Highway, where we lay in the tall dried grass at the back and caught the end of the Saturday Night Triple Bill.

I relived the rich but rare moments of family togetherness when there was no other place I wanted to be; the puzzling but satisfying first solitary hours as a twelve-year-old, hitch-hiking fifteen kilometres to the town of White Rock and standing on the beach, gazing at the ocean; and when I lay, reading under my covers till dawn with a flashlight, my father’s Reader’s Digests stored in the boys’ bedroom, repeatedly, until by looking at any cover image I could remember all the articles in an issue. 

I recalled the seemingly endless silences between my stressed-out father and myself, contrasted by his attacks that began with an incident of explosive religious rage when I was four in which I was struck so hard that my soul and body separated—a hundred Thou Shalt Nots now buried to the bone—and then bullying and criticism that continued until I was as tall as he was (thankfully, with fresh cow’s milk every day, at age fourteen) . . . 

. . . There was terror in the whole family from never knowing when, and for what unwritten transgression, the next raging outburst would come; then in early adolescence longing for my mother to introduce me into manhood; at twelve starting to shoplift, at thirteen to smoke cigarettes, at fourteen to drink beer and hard liquor, and at sixteen after initiation into driving to race at speeds over 160 kilometres per hour Dad’s powerful ‘56 Meteor station wagon (292-cubic-inch V-8 engine, four-barrel carburetor and a ‘three-on-the-tree’ shifter) on rural and not-so-rural Surrey streets, day or night; spending my high-school graduation night—that second unsatisfying rite of passage in western society after achieving a driver’s license—drinking and racing full-bore, tires screaming, a fellow student around twisting Stanley Park Drive in Vancouver . . .

. . . There was the near-death experience of barely missing another car at 130 kph in our tiny two-seater Austin-Healey Sprite when my pal, for unmentioned reasons of his own, one night began running, one after another, the stop signs that appeared every mile at intersections on 168th Street; the two-year college diploma earned at twenty and the ensuing good fortune of being hired for a position in Eastern Canada, 4,500 kilometres away—the answer to my first self-created prayer: the one I had intoned on my fourteenth birthday asking Jesus to get me far away from that concentration camp and my “holocaust on 184th Street” . . .

On and on the stories came. The Voice in the Light, free from judgment about any of them, then stopped showing me images and began communicating in sentences again. 

"As you let go of the pain of your growing up," it thought into my mind, "your life will improve and you won't be so tired or suffer so much stress being close with unfamiliar people."  

At that moment I realized I had missed out on a basic human relationship—that of being fathered: nurtured, instructed and guided by older male presence. However, I now seemed to have just the kind of attention, guidance and caring I longed for, some of the fatherly wisdom for which my whole being thirsted. Then I asked the question that begins this piece of writing. 

"You can see angels," came the reply. "You haven‘t forgotten how, while many others have. You are a seer . . ." 

And Heaven? 

"Heaven is all around you, wherever you are . . ."

I emerged from Bonn‘s Hauptbahnhof energized and radiant, feeling stronger than in months; all tiredness had vanished . . . 

 [ Twelve years after this European trip and three years after my father‘s passing, one evening as I sat quietly in my kitchen balancing my chequebook, another voice began whispering in my mind. ”I‘m sorry,” it silently said. Then again, ”I‘m sorry . . . I‘m sorry. . . .” This time it was the voice of my physical father, and the nourishing message, repeated for perhaps twenty minutes as my tears fell, began to re-establish a communication that had been lost for decades. Much later, during a channelling session I attended with Sananda/Jesus, I was told that it had taken my father three years out of his body to do his emotional healing. ]

Four days after my visit to the station restaurant where the Voice in the Light had communicated with me, and drawn my that experience, I wanted to stop by the Hauptbahnhof again. This time Suzanne was with me, and as we approached the vast structure, tears began flowing down my face. Asked what was happening, I couldn't find words to describe the experience. The tears streamed so freely and for so long that she began moving away from me, seeming to wonder if I hadn‘t lost my senses along with my ability to speak . . . 

Finally I was ready to comprehend the unfamiliar new feeling—it was joy! At age forty-five I was having my first, almost unfathomable, experience of adult joy. I was relaxing on a long European vacation with quality companionship, happy to be practising my German—spoken exclusively till I was four years old—in Germany; happy to at last experience the presence of a caring Father . . . happy today and still on this Earth. . . . 

French philosopher and priest Teilhard de Chardin wrote: "Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God."

 ~ J ~ O ~ Y ~

Thinking of Home
(c) 2020 by Neall Calvert

 

 

THE BEST HOLIDAYS are HOLY DAYS -- Memoir

Text and Image

© Copyright 2017 by Neall Calvert

"House of Jewels" (c) 2017 by N. C.

I

 USED TO OVERWORK AND NOT TAKE VACATIONS. One spring a few years ago I’d been busy for months editing books, selling my photographs, and performing music for the first time . . . okay, I was actually addicted to work—I couldn’t unhook.

Hard work (along with thriftiness, family togetherness and the church) is a cornerstone of the Mennonite faith in which I grew up. The Protestant work ethic was so important that, in some homes, emotional and physical violence were not considered too-strong measures to instill this ‘value’ in children. My prayers to Jesus at age 14 to get me far away from my victimizing, unhappy family had been answered when, at age 20, I got a job 5,000 kilometres away. I returned only occasionally. 

After my father—the most obvious offender—died (when I was 46, and had become tired of city life), I lived on my mother's 10-acre farm for two years and got to know her again. I became aware of her contentment, her love of nature, and her consideration for others in her extensive social network. I introduced her to the benefits of animal companionship by bringing a kitten I found beside the road into the house (it spent many hours on her lap during her bereavement). One day she said to me, "You have the Christ light in your eyes," so at last I felt seen as a spiritual being rather than a so-called 'religious person'.

Sadly, many Mennonites in my growing-up experience seemed to be out of touch with their bodies. They continued working until something, either physically or mentally, broke. Mistrustful of the medical and psychological worlds, they avoided seeking help till the last possible moment. Even in the late stages of the 20th century, one Mennonite man, a carpenter, recounted to me as if it were an everyday experience how his wife awoke one night to find him, standing up while still asleep, pounding unseen nails into the bedroom wall with an invisible hammer. . . . Overwork? Stress? No, not here.

Though I couldn’t afford a distant excursion this year, I realized that the main reason I hadn’t been taking journeys out of town was the lack of a partner. “So why don’t I have companionship for adventurous holidays?” I asked myself.

Awakening the next morning with the words “Granville Island” on my mind, I set as my destination this artistic community surrounded by water in the middle of the city of Vancouver. First, though, I decided to have an hour-long hot bath. After all, I was building a holiday state of mind—a state free from fear or worry. The long soak (with Epsom salts that pull tension out of the muscles) is useful for generating creative ideas too. In my search for wellness I had discovered that when my body deeply relaxes, so does my mental apparatus, and in that state I become receptive to fresh thoughts and ideas.

In the tub I continued to contemplate why I had no female companion, and afterwards, putting on my jacket, I recalled a stimulating two-year relationship with a sun-filled woman, a time that had included a seven-week vacation in Europe; we had separated five years earlier. I suddenly realized I had never forgiven her for leaving me. (My mind had now relaxed and moved out of the repetitive track called “But you’ve got to earn a living!”) Then, quickly, one after another, pictures of other women I had had relationships with assembled in my mind like a stack of playing cards—all waiting to be forgiven.

I faced a nearly impossible task, it seemed. My mind, however, had a solution: spend a whole day (or more) repeating “I forgive you” nonstop while holding each ex-partner in my thoughts; that would lay the necessary groundwork for future female companionship.

During the thirty-minute bus ride to Granville Island I started silently chanting my “I forgive you” mantra. I continued while beginning my walk in sunny, breezy weather and while stopping to watch children at the water park laughing and screaming with delight as they romped through the various fountain configurations or sprayed each other with hoses and water cannons . . . “I forgive you . . . I forgive you . . .”

I strolled to the eastern tip of Granville Island, past the old foundries that had become artisans’ shops and art galleries, along the boardwalk beside the marina crammed with deluxe motor yachts . . . “I forgive you . . . I forgive you . . . ,” past the hotel and its outdoor restaurant, empty at this hour, past the neat row of rectangular floating homes, their decks decorated with emerald-green shrubs and hanging petunia baskets . . . “I forgive you . . . I forgive you . . .”

I moved on to the art school named after Emily Carr where I stopped in to visit the gallery, then strolled by boutiques and restaurants bearing names like Dragonspace and Kharma Kitchen . . . “I forgive you . . . I forgive you. . . .” I finally got to the huge, high-ceilinged public market with its cornucopia of vegetables and fruits and its art and craft displays and began catching whiffs of baked goods, seafood and fresh-ground coffee. My repetitive chant was in its third hour as, at a Greek food stand, I bought a falafel sandwich for its tasty filling of deep-fried, spiced chickpea patties, tomatoes, lettuce and tzatziki sauce comprised of yogurt, garlic and cucumbers.

Stepping outside to eat in the sunshine, from my perch on a picnic bench I watched sail and power boats lazily motoring back and forth beneath the steel truss work of Art Deco–styled Burrard Bridge. A siren sounded from beyond the bridge and then a powerful red-and-white crash boat from Kitsilano Coast Guard Station sped out to sea.

Closer to me, seagulls and starlings successfully begged for handouts and a young man in a striped T-shirt shouted, in that raucous song unique to dog owners, “Cisco—here boy! Cisco—here boy! Cisco—here boy! . . .” I looked around and located his dog three metres beneath the dock we stood on, violating all notions of animal intelligence by eagerly struggling to drag out of False Creek’s salty-smelling brine a five-metre waterlogged plank.

The youth’s hollering continued as I scanned the enormous outside deck of sunflower-bright Bridges Restaurant, full of sunning customers. Relative quiet suddenly manifested, so I looked over and then gave thanks that Cisco, who moments ago had seemed to be nowhere, was now here.

My chanting now began to take on a different quality, I noticed. My voice had strangely become more feminine—and it seemed to be taking on a life of its own. What is happening here? I puzzled. I realized slowly, hard as it was to believe, that I was no longer the speaker, rather a listener—some voice besides my own was now uttering the phrase that I had been repeating for several hours!

“I forgive you . . .” it was saying, and then: “I forgive you for anything you need to say to me, or about me, for the way I raised you. I forgive you. Any hatred, anger or resentment you need to express, I forgive you for right now. The slate is clean from my end, Neall. I forgive you.”

My committed Christian mother, who had unexpectedly died of a stroke three months before (at age 82 and in the midst of a widow’s romance with a fellow churchgoer, age 81) was leaving me her last words. In response, tears fell—cleansing, redeeming tears—and more than a few. . . . And then, since today I was claiming time as my friend, I sat for another half hour, embracing my new clarity, sense of connectedness and inner peace. 

“Holy day” is what the word “holiday” once meant. My day had proved itself true to that original definition.